Startups To Start Noticing: HUNGRY

Ordering food in D.C. has gotten a lot harder, but not in the way it used to be. Being out of your favorite restaurants delivery zone sucked, but at least it simplified things. Now, no matter where you live in D.C., you can get almost anything your heart desires, for a price. From Shake Shack to Rasika, if you have a craving for it, someone will deliver it to you.

The problem now is picking a service. There’s Caviar. Uber Eats. Postmates. Door Dash. Grub Hub. And even more options if you want non food items, alcohol, etc. And now, there’s a new one in the mix. HUNGRY will deliver you a delicious, warm lunch (get the shrimp kathi rolls, you will not regret it), but instead of ordering from a restaurant, you’re ordering from a professional, and occasionally famous, chef. Allowing consumers to have access to foods that aren’t available anywhere else.

We sat down with HUNGRY’s Director of PR, Pardis Saremi, to chat about what makes HUNGRY stand out in a sea of other food delivery options. And why you should use it to order lunch on Monday.

Our founders actually came up with the idea when they were on their lunch break at their previous company. It was located in a food desert, so they were kind of used to all the same fast food and take out options. They were going out to lunch one day and they realized they wanted some authentic cooking. Something created by a top chef, but without having to go to a really nice sit down restaurant. They did some market research and they realized there were people similar to them, who were looking for access to these top personal chefs in the form of a delivery. They chefs, on the other hand, were already providing that service. They were already creating the meals and selling them, there was just this market place that was the missing link. So that’s where the idea for HUNGRY came about. So that’s where it came from. They wanted to make this market place where chefs were making their own culinary creations, setting their own schedule. Basically democratizing the personal chef. Giving people access to really delicious food made from professionals in the food industry, but at affordable price points. All of our lunches start at $10, which is pretty standard, but if you think about the fact that the chef who is cooking your food works at a top restaurant in the area where you would have to get a reservation… It really lowers the barrier of entry for chefs and for foodies who are trying to get access to really amazing food.

How did you get involved with the company?

I heard about it through a friend who was already working there. I was really excited, honestly, about working for a startup. It’s something I feel like everyone should do, especially when they’re young. You learn a lot about yourself… and then on the other hand, I consider myself a foodie. Everytime I go to a new city the first thing I do is explore the food scene and the restaurants and that sort of thing. So that caught my interest right off the bat.

What do you look for in a chef you’re going to partner with?

We do have a vetting process for our chefs. There’s standard requirements like they have to have worked in a licensed kitchen or restaurant for three or more years, they have to have a culinary degree. Once they pass those requirements then we bring them in and we do food tastings. We basically check their background. Where they’ve worked, references, that sort of thing. Just like any job, but there is certainly a vetting process to make sure we have top quality chefs.

What are some of the most popular things people order?

A lot of the foods that are really popular are actually foods that are unique to the app. The foods that you can’t really find in restaurants, which is why I think a lot of people are attracted to them. They’re things like Chef Rakesh’s Kathi Rolls, which is kind of like an Indian street food. Then we have things like Chef Stacy’s Pho-rito, which is a really trendy thing in the food space right now, and you can only find that on the app. It’s really popular on the west coast but no restaurant has really started serving it. Foods like that. Trendy food items, street food items. Those are the things that do best on the app and people really love to eat them.

What’s a normal day in the office like at HUNGRY?

It’s totally chaotic as you would image. Everyone is super busy, running around. There’s always a million things to be done, like at any startup. What’s really amazing is that everyone in the company is willing to take on multiple roles. If anything comes up, everyone is willing to help out. You walk in the office and we’re onboarding chefs, we’re doing food photography in the kitchen, we’re closing out catering deals, we’re working on press deals. It’s just totally these spinning gears that never stop.

What does your delivery map look like at this point? Do you cover all of DC?

Yeah, we cover all of D.C. Parts of Northern Virginia, mainly Fairfax county, and then Montgomery County in Maryland.

Awesome. Are there any plans to expand?

We actually just closed out our round of funding and one of our investors is based out of New York. So that will likely be our next move in 2017. They have a really great food scene and the people in that area are very willing to try new things. It’s a younger crowd, especially Manhattan and that’s our target market. The people there are always willing to try new things and new foods and New York is usually one of the first few places to take on food trends.

If you could work with any chef, who would you choose?

Oh. Good question. Maybe Jose Andres? He’s huge and he’s a huge D.C. advocate. And we really do pride ourselves on being a hyper focused local company. We’re from this area and we love repping that in the same way he does. That would be a match made in heaven.

What’s your favorite part of working at HUNGRY?

Besides the fact that we have food in the office every single day, I guess the fact that there’s a lot of flexibility. You can play any role you feel you fit into best. We have great leadership here, so everyone in the office is constantly learning. There are great leaders to look up to. It’s just a learning environment, which I really enjoy.

What’s the most challenging part of working at HUNGRY?

I don’t know. It’s long hours, but you don’t really notice that until you’re closing a project and looking back. You bust your butt, but it is really rewarding. It honestly is.

Tell me about the app you guys have. What are your favorite features?

Well, the app is a smart app, which basically means it learns your ordering preferences. You can filter out by dietary preferences and by type of food, allergies, all of that… and then the more your order the more the app learns from you. It will pick up on the fact that you’re vegan or vegetarian and recommend those kinds of foods for you and will filter those kinds of foods you like to the top of the feed. So you’re not swimming through these options every time, they’ll kind of pop up there at the top. It will also learn your favorite chefs. So any time your favorite chef has put up a new menu item, it will send you a notification and tell you to try that out. It makes it pretty easy because we do have a lot of food items in the app everyday, and it make it easier to sort through them.
What do you think really sets you apart from other food delivery options like Cater2Me or Postmates?
I would say our exclusive access to top chefs. No one out there has the market we do. We’re creating a new space in the food world where you’re seeing the food that you’re ordering, but you’re basically ordering from a chef. You can see where they’ve worked and their credentials. Instead of being attracted to the name of a restaurant, the brand is really in the chef and that’s a whole new concept that we’re creating.

Do you think that’s something consumers can differentiate? I guess depending on how foodie you are, what does it matter if you’re ordering from a restaurant or ordering directly from that restaurant’s chef? How are you guys making that difference apparent?

90% of millennials care about what’s going into their food. So we’re playing on that right now by giving people a list of ingredients that’s going into their food. You go into a restaurant and you’re not really getting that. You’re getting the background of a chef, it’s a sort of knowledge you’re getting about the food you’re eating that you don’t get outside of HUNGRY.

Cool. Anything else going on that you guys are particularly excited about?

We just got our website ordering up and running. Before we were only available in the iOS App Store, but now we’re available for website ordering, so you can just go on line. In terms of chef’s we’re excited about, we’re working with top chef Adam Greenberg, who is also part owner of Barcelona. We’re working with previous White House chef Patrice Olivon. We are in a couple of talks with a couple big chefs in the food industry and a couple based out of New York, but I think we’re going to save those names until it’s official.

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Rather than pander to the purists or create music for DJs alone, Daniel Goldstein aka Lane 8 has always tread his own, distinctive path -- perhaps best summed up by

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Rather than pander to the purists or create music for DJs alone, Daniel Goldstein aka Lane 8 has always tread his own, distinctive path — perhaps best summed up by his phones-free event and label concept This Never Happened.

The concept is a simple one: remove all phones and cameras from the event, get back to connecting with the music and the people around you. And it is one that has been embraced with passion by Lane 8’s dedicated fanbase and the dance community at large. With his most recent This Never Happened tours including sold-out shows at Warsaw in New York, The Fonda in LA, and Zoo Project in Sydney, the This Never Happened message is being spread far and wide.

In tandem with the events, Daniel’s output on the TNH label has stood out for its integrity and artistry whether on emotional epics like “Fingerprint” or quirky upbeat groovers such as “With Me.” Always defined by a melodic touch, TNH is the culmination of a steady, assured rise over recent years.

After blowing up in the blogosphere with a series of Soundcloud-driven Hype Machine #1s around 2014, Lane 8 rose to wider prominence through a relationship with the tastemaking Anjunadeep label and his critically acclaimed 2015 album “Rise.”

Returning to the label with the Kidnap Kid collaboration “Aba,” 2017 will also see a steady stream of music on This Never Happened and more TNH tours the world over.

Alongside his own productions, his remixes have almost become as sought after as his originals with reworks of Maribou State’s Wallflower and ODESZA’s “Bloom.” More recently he has given RUFUS’s leftfield pop gem “Innerbloom” and Deadmau5’s iconic “Strobe” his own unique touch.

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There’s a great scene in The Last Waltz – the documentary about The Band’s final concert – where director Martin Scorsese is discussing music with drummer/singer/mandolin player Levon Helm. Helm

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There’s a great scene in The Last Waltz – the documentary about The Band’s final concert – where director Martin Scorsese is discussing music with drummer/singer/mandolin player Levon Helm. Helm says, “If it mixes with rhythm, and if it dances, then you’ve got a great combination of all those different kinds of music: country, bluegrass, blues music, show music…”

To which Scorsese, the inquisitive interviewer, asks, “What’s it called, then?”

“Rock & roll!”

Clearly looking for a more specific answer, but realizing that he isn’t going to get one, Marty laughs. “Rock & roll…”

Well, that’s the way it is sometimes: musicians play music, and don’t necessarily worry about where it gets filed. It’s the writers, record labels, managers, etc., who tend to fret about what “kind” of music it is.And like The Band, the members of Railroad Earth aren’t losing sleep about what “kind” of music they play – they just play it. When they started out in 2001, they were a bunch of guys interested in playing acoustic instruments together. As Railroad Earth violin/vocalist Tim Carbone recalls, “All of us had been playing in various projects for years, and many of us had played together in different projects. But this time, we found ourselves all available at the same time.”

Songwriter/lead vocalist Todd Sheaffer continues, “When we started, we only loosely had the idea of getting together and playing some music. It started that informally; just getting together and doing some picking and playing. Over a couple of month period, we started working on some original songs, as well as playing some covers that we thought would be fun to play.”

Shortly thereafter, they took five songs from their budding repertoire into a studio and knocked out a demo in just two days. Their soon-to-be manager sent that demo to a few festivals, and – to the band’s surprise – they were booked at the prestigious Telluride Bluegrass Festival before they’d even played their first gig. This prompted them to quickly go in and record five more songs; the ten combined tracks of which made up their debut album, “The Black Bear Sessions.”

That was the beginning of Railroad Earth’s journey: since those early days, they’ve gone on to release five more critically acclaimed studio albums and one hugely popular live one called, “Elko.” They’ve also amassed a huge and loyal fanbase who turn up to support them in every corner of the country, and often take advantage of the band’s liberal taping and photo policy. But Railroad Earth bristle at the notion of being lumped into any one “scene.” Not out of animosity for any other artists: it’s just that they don’t find the labels very useful. As Carbone points out, “We use unique acoustic instrumentation, but we’re definitely not a bluegrass or country band, which sometimes leaves music writers confused as to how to categorize us. We’re essentially playing rock on acoustic instruments.”

Ultimately, Railroad Earth’s music is driven by the remarkable songs of front-man, Todd Sheaffer, and is delivered with seamless arrangements and superb musicianship courtesy of all six band members. As mandolin/bouzouki player John Skehan points out, “Our M.O. has always been that we can improvise all day long, but we only do it in service to the song. There are a lot of songs that, when we play them live, we adhere to the arrangement from the record. And other songs, in the nature and the spirit of the song, everyone knows we can kind of take flight on them.” Sheaffer continues: “The songs are our focus, our focal point; it all starts right there. Anything else just comments on the songs and gives them color. Some songs are more open than others. They ‘want’ to be approached that way – where we can explore and trade musical ideas and open them up to different territories. But sometimes it is what the song is about.”

So: they can jam with the best of them and they have some bluegrass influences, but they use drums and amplifiers (somewhat taboo in the bluegrass world). What kind of music is it then? Mandolin/vocalist John Skehan offers this semi-descriptive term: “I always describe it as a string band, but an amplified string band with drums.” Tim Carbone takes a swing: “We’re a Country & Eastern band! ” Todd Sheaffer offers “A souped-up string band? I don’t know. I’m not good at this.” Or, as a great drummer/singer/mandolin player with an appreciation for Americana once said: “Rock & roll!”

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With its title “the green laurel” taken from a 1584 book of madrigals, this program explores the growth of Italian musical style from Renaissance to Baroque, including virtuoso instrumental versions

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Overview
With its title “the green laurel” taken from a 1584 book of madrigals, this program explores the growth of Italian musical style from Renaissance to Baroque, including virtuoso instrumental versions of madrigals and the songs themselves, as well as the new monodies of Monteverdi, Francesca Caccini, and other 17th-century luminaries. With violin, viol, lute, and soprano Jolle Greenleaf and additional special guests from Italy—instrumentalists Marcello Mazzetti and LivioTicli from the Palma Choralis Ensemble, based in Brescia in the Lombardi region of northern Italy.

Folger Consort gratefully acknowledges the kind support of our sponsors. For a full list of Consort sponsors, please visit our Sponsors page.

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Andy Borowitz is a New York Times best-selling author and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. In 2001, he created The Borowitz Report, a satirical

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Andy Borowitz is a New York Times best-selling author and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. In 2001, he created The Borowitz Report, a satirical news column that has millions of readers around the world, for which he won the first-ever National Press Club award for humor. The Borowitz Report was acquired by The New Yorker in 2012.

Before creating The Borowitz Report, he created the classic sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” winning the NAACP Image Award and launching the acting career of Will Smith. He has many other Hollywood credits, including the Oscar-nominated film “Pleasantville.”

His most recent books have both been bestsellers: “The 50 Funniest American Writers,” which became the first title in the history of the Library of America to make the Times best-seller list; and a memoir, “An Unexpected Twist,” a No. 1 best-seller, which Amazon named the Best Kindle Single of the Year.

His work is widely shared on social media: his Twitter feed, @BorowitzReport, has more than half a million followers and was voted the best Twitter feed in a poll by Time; his Facebook feed has over eight hundred thousand followers; and his most recent comedy video received over one million views on YouTube in its first week alone.

As a comedian, he has performed sold-out shows around the world and has made countless television and radio appearances, on National Public Radio, VH1, and Comedy Central, among other places. He has been called a “Swiftian satirist” (the Wall Street Journal), “America’s satire king” (the Daily Beast), “the funniest human on Twitter” (the Times), and “one of the funniest people in America” (CBS News’ ”Sunday Morning”).